Recap /
Littlest Pet Shop 2012 S 2 E 7 What Meme Worry

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Zoe: "My dream has always been to become famous for doing very little work. Sunil has my dream, and he doesn't even care for it!"

Written by Evan Gore and Heather Lombard

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The day camp pets at the Littlest Pet Shop observe Blythe and Mrs. Twombly discussing something unintelligible behind the glass. After a bit of speculation, Blythe steps into the room with a pair of nail clippers and announces that it's nail clipping time, to the terror of all of the pets, especially Sunil.

When Blythe actually gets to nail-clipping, the pets only feel mild annoyance once finished—except Sunil, who remains nervous and apprehensive. Sunil attempts not to be seen, and Blythe almost forgets him, but Jasper reminds her. Blythe soon finds Sunil and puts him on the platform, where he retreats to a distance from everyone else and cowers behind his tail. After Youngmee comments on Sunil's nervousness, Jasper quickly takes a liking to Sunil's expression and takes a picture of him with his phone. As Blythe treats Sunil, Jasper does some quick photo-editing, taking Sunil's head, putting it on a fuchsia background, and adding the caption "Worrying Mongoose Knows How You Feel!" Jasper then posts it online, where, by the time the three of them have finished commenting about the image, it has already received four thumbs up.

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After Blythe finishes her nail-clipping session and Youngmee and Jasper leave the room, various people around Downtown City stumble across Jasper's image, get a kick out of it, give it a thumbs up, and and send it to other people. By nightfall, it has already received 121,000 thumbs up and receives another thirteen thousand as Jasper tells the good news with Blythe. By the following morning, when Blythe shows the image to Sunil, it has received its millionth thumbs up. The other pets react in admiration except Zoe, who immediately grows jealous of Sunil's new fame. That jealousy only intensifies when Sunil makes it clear to everyone that he doesn't want to be famous.

The Sunil meme has caused another jump in sales to the Littlest Pet Shop, using Sunil as a mascot. Incidentally, Russell, Vinnie, Minka, and Pepper are constantly talking about Sunil and his news media coverage, with Sunil talking about all the attention he's getting, within earshot of a fuming Zoe. Within seconds, Zoe, unable to contain her frustration, rails against Sunil, to which Pepper immediately takes Zoe to the enclosed area at the top of the slide, where Pepper lets Zoe tell Pepper exactly how she feels and to vent out her rage.

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Jasper runs back into the Littlest Pet Shop to inform Blythe and Mrs. Twombly about "mashups," where other people have taken the Sunil image and made variations by modifying the background and the captions. Each of these mashups Jasper has found have received five- and six-digit quantities of thumbs up of their own.

At the Biskit Mansion, Whittany comes across the Sunil meme and expresses disbelief over how it can be so popular. The two are so disgusted at Sunil's popularity having taken off that Whittany throws her laptop away, forcing their butler, Monsieur LeGrande, to give them a replacement computer from an armoire full of spare laptops. As he brings one over, Brittany gets the idea of doing whatever is the most popular thing on the Internet. When LeGrande looks it up and finds out self-made music videos have become a thing, Whittany decides to launch a music video too, hoping to become famous just like Sunil.

Back at the Littlest Pet Shop, Zoe desperately tries her ideas of photograhs she hopes will go viral, but Blythe, when she catches on to what Zoe is intending, doesn't see what the big deal is and walks away. Zoe continues her one-sided brainstorming with Pepper, then Zoe stomps away when she sees cameras pointed at Sunil sleeping.

The next day at school, the Biskit Twins have installed televisions on all of the hallways and threaten the students to give them thumbs up online to keep the televisions up. After the announcement, the screens immediately start playing their music video, "Two Times as Cute," to everyone's confusion.

At the Littlest Pet Shop, reporter Ginny Hues has dropped by to discuss Sunil. Zoe watches from offscreen, feeling ready to lick everybody. Pepper warns her in vain about losing her self-respect as Zoe dashes out and attempts to take the spotlight herself. Zoe chass Sunil off the camera and hops onto Ginny's lap, licking her face as Mrs. Twombly nervously smiles into the camera.

Afterwards, Zoe realizes she just embarrassed everyone on camera while throwing away her decency. While she hasn't given up trying to go viral, she now discusses what to do carefully with Blythe. Mid-conversation, Jasper enters Blythe's room to let her know that "Two Times as Cute" has gone viral, but in the other direction—it has racked up thumbs down even faster than Sunil's image without earning a single thumbs up. Jasper starts playing the video, and Zoe howls in pain to it. Not letting this moment go to waste, Jasper records Zoe's reaction, and it, too, goes viral. Watching the numbers climb, Zoe apologizes to Sunil about feeling jealous, and Sunil reassures her that he never even noticed.

Meanwhile, the Biskit Twins get wind of all the thumbs down they've received, and Whittany throws the computer in the wastebasket again. LeGrande points out their video has just received a thumbs up, however—and the person who did so turns out to be Mrs. Twombly, who can't get enough of the Biskit Twins' song.

Artistic License  Geography: While the world map is about right, the population distribution is off. Sunil seems to be getting a disproportionately large amount of thumbs up from sparsely-populated regions like inner Greenland, Siberia, central Australia, and western China whereas he apparently only has one thumbs-up from Indonesia and none at all from Israel, its surrounding countries, or France.

Aside Glance: LeGrande after Brittany gets the idea for a music video.

Brain Bleach: Zoe proposes licking the legs of everyone in Downtown City, then realizes there are some people whom she'd rather not lick, imagining a fat hairy man in a wife beater. When she licks his leg, he is the only one to smile.

Broken Aesop: It isn't until Zoe gets what she wants (being more famous than Sunil) that she actually apologises to him for her jealousy.

Buffy Speak: To Whittany, a laptop is a "laptop thingy," and LeGrande is "Butler Guy." Brittany calls an idea a "brain thingy."

Comical Overreacting: The pets see nail-clipping as something of horror, except for Pepper, who doesn't seem to mind much, and Vinnie, who, as a gecko, has no nails to clip. Truth in Television, as improperly-cut nails and claws on animals will result in rather sharp and searing pain due to the nerve endings at their bases. An animal who gets clipped like that even once will learn to fear the nail clippers.

Damned by a Fool's Praise: Mrs. Twombly is the only one who liked the Biskits' video. Though not an idiot, she is kind of weird.

Dwindling Party: The editing and camera angles used in Sunil's Cold Open flashback gives off this impression—each time Blythe captures a pet, he or she is never seen again.

Green-Eyed Monster: In this episode, Zoe is motivated by jealousy after Sunil accidentally acquires the fame she's always sought.

I Am Not Weasel: Sunil, a mongoose, gets mistaken for an otter and then a weasel. (Otters are a type of weasel, however, making this a literal example in both cases.) Brittany then calls Sunil a bear cub seconds after Whittany calls him a weasel. A few minutes later, Whittany refers to Sunil as a "fur turtle." note Mongooses are in the suborder Feliformes (cats) whereas weasels are in the suborder Caniformes (dogs), meaning they are not closely related besides both being in the order Carnivora.

Instant Web Hit: The premise of this episode, to Zoe's dismay. Zoe later gets one too.

Intelligible Unintelligible: Vinnie hears the news anchor from his owners' home, severely muffled behind his terrarium's glass wall. Somehow, he could figure out it's about Sunil despite there being no images displayed.

Jive Turkey: Used repeatedly in this episode with Mrs. Twombly. She even has a book she consults with her interpretations of modern slang, with varying levels of outdatedness and correctness.

Kill It with Fire: LeGrande is so repulsed looking at the music video for "We're Having a Party, Party" that he destroys the laptop with a shovel and tosses the remains into the fireplace.

Literal-Minded: When Zoe exclaims that Sunil's memetic status is impossible, Russell corrects her saying that it's merely unlikely, not impossible.

Lost Aesop: Zoe only gets over her jealousy by eclipsing Sunil in momentary Internet fame.

Memetic Mutation: The plot of the episode. In-Universe, Sunil becomes one accidentally; Zoe and the Biskits try to emulate him, with mixed results.

Not So Different: Zoe and the Biskit Twins react to the Sunil meme with similar levels of jealousy. Subverted, however, when the Biskit Twins take the lead and make their music video before Zoe can get started, and Zoe learns the Internet can also cause inadvertent humiliation.

Recurring Extra: The wife of the old couple seen in the Biskit Mansion party in "Door-Jammed" and at the fancy restaurant "Eight Arms to Hold You" is briefly seen helping to spread the Sunil meme. Her husband is reading the newspaper in the foreground. She later helps spread the Zoe meme, though her husband is now nowhere in sight.

Josh Sharpe's skating friend from "Blythe's Crush" is in the store examining a box in the scene where Littlest Pet Shop is getting a sales boom from Sunil.

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